Tlemcenתלמסאן

Western Algeria — Maghrebi center

Tlemcen is a city in northwestern Algeria, near the Moroccan border. A Roman outpost called Pomaria, it grew from the merger of the early Islamic settlement of Agadir with the Almoravid foundation of Tagrart, whose Great Mosque still stands. From 1236 to 1554 it was capital of the Zayyanid kingdom, whose madrasas made it a leading centre of learning in the central Maghreb, and the Sufi master Abu Madyan, buried nearby, is venerated as its patron. It came under Ottoman rule in the mid-sixteenth century and later became part of French Algeria. Tradition credits the founding of its Jewish community to the physician-rabbi Ephraim Alnaqua (d. 1442), and in the twentieth century Rabbi Yosef Messas served as its chief rabbi.

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